An Experimental Study On The Lexical Approach To Oral English Teaching

It is widely recognized that lexical chunks play an important role in second languageacquisition. The chunk-based teaching method, lexical approach, takes English language asthe combined stable chunks. The stability of the structure and semantics of the predictabilityof chunks can reduce the difficulty of language acquisition and use. That’s why lots ofresearchers and scholars become interested in the study of the influence of lexical approachteaching on oral English proficiency. This dissertation aims to testify effectiveness ofapplying lexical approach to oral English teaching on improving fluency and accuracy ofspeakers’ oral English.56sophomores, who major in Applied English in one vocational college, are involved inthe experiment. The lexical approach is applied in EC, while the traditional approach isapplied in CC. All participants take the pre-test and the post-test at the beginning and at theend of the experiment. Data collected from both tests are processed with SPSS13.0.The result of the experiment shows that there is no marked difference between EC andCC in students’ oral English proficiency. However, after the experiment, students in EC taughtwith the lexical approach make greater progress more than students in CC taught with thetraditional teaching method. Students in EC improve their oral English as the result of bettermastery and use of more chunks in the aspects of amount, accuracy and variability. Studentshold that the application of lexical approach exerts a favorable influence on their oral Englishproficiency. In addition, it helps to reduce grammatical errors in language production andenable learners to apply language flexibly.It is demonstrated that the application of lexical approach in oral English teachingenhance learners’ oral English proficiency. The author believes that the theory of lexicalapproach provides a specific guidance for oral English teaching in hope of more effectiveapplication to English teaching and improvement in learners’ oral English level.